Wednesday, 8 December 2010

Paris Book Shop ~ 'Open For Business'

In this post I'd like to introduce you to one of the features of Paris If You Please I'm very excited about: The Bookshop. Unfortunately, in my desperate and probably misguided attempt to have all the above heading begin with 'P', all I could think of was 'Purchaces'. Not very sexy, I agree. Maybe 'Presents' would be better. 'Pressies' too twee. 'Paperbacks' to restrictive. The only thing is they're not presents at all are they, until you buy one and give it to someone!

But the idea is this: an Amazon bookshop stocked with all the best books about Paris, from histories to novels and from walking guides to personal stories. All of these personally picked by me, Sab, the creator of this site and self-confessed Paris book junkie.﻿﻿﻿﻿

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The Wonderful PIYP Bookshop. Now with added books.

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Now I know you might think I'm just trying to make money from this, but believe me, I'm not. I've spent probably hundreds of hours in the past creating fantastic bookshops and in all that time sold about three books and made about three bucks, which I don't think I was even able to claim!

What I am excited about though is the idea of a bookshop for this site in itself. There are so many, and I mean hundreds of great books about this great city, and I'd love to share a few of my favourites with you. Feel free to tell me about your favourites too! I'm in the process of creating and stocking the various sections, which include:

Personal Favourites

Latest Reviews

City Walks & Curiosities

Paris Histories

Transport

Classic Novels

Contemporary Novels

Poetry

Photo & Picture Books

Fance If You Fancy

Paris Books In French

So here's how it works. I've chosen the Amazon UK store, as it tends to have an excellent range of books, including lots of good quality second-hand ones, often at phenomenally low prices (e.g. £0.01! - you just pay two or three pounds for postage). If you're in France then getting them shipped over doesn't cost too much, but you might want to have a look at Amazon.fr, especially for books originally in French, where the choice may be better.

For customers further afield then Amazon.com or your local one might be a better bet, but I've noticed that the UK store often gives you US options for many of the titles second-hand. Once you're signed in you can just click on an international link to see if there's a better option for you. But my little bookshop here should give you plenty of ideas and if you did ever buy a book or two through it I might get a euro or so from time to time!

Watch out for lots of book reviews here as I can't seem to keep quiet when I've got a great new book about France, and I'm keen to have your suggestions too. Between us we should be able to keep the market covered. And finally, I'd be very grateful if you commented on the reviews, saying what you thought of both the review, and especially the books if you buy them. It's always good to have more than one opinion.

And really finally, I'm not a fan of writing reviews which criticise books unnecessarily. I'd rather be writing about books I love and which I can recommend wholeheartedly, so expect every review to be a potential buy - it's much more fun that way! Pop in to the Bookshop sometime and say hi...